


A Future that Never Was (Part 2)

by Harukami



Series: A Future That Never Was [2]
Category: Camp Fuck You Die, Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-27
Updated: 2011-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:54:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Future that Never Was (Part 2)

**Suspira**

Sora still hasn't figured it out by the time his energy runs out and he finds himself exhausted. He's managed to figure that they can totally understand him, but while he suspects they're responding somehow, he can't hear a thing. It's all silence to him.

He apologizes a lot, then a bit more because they kinda seem uncomfortable with that.

"I'm tired, guys," he says, finally. "Maybe we can try more tomorrow? I mean, between taking out the Heartless."

It's really a rhetorical question because he can't hear their response and they don't take their helmets off for expressions and their body language is the same respectful relaxed anticipation. He sighs, rubs the back of his head, and heads into Roxas's room.

It's a little weird being here. Not as weird as some of the places he's been, sure, but it's just not quite right, somehow. There's the couch, and assorted clutter, but it doesn't look like a place to live. It's just a lot of things gathered together to almost-mimic it. The couch, but no bed. Nothing really comfortable besides that. Books with their spines fully intact. No -- no _slippers_ , nothing left out like people do, just empty space and objects.

It's a bit creepy, and Sora wonders vaguely if Roxas was okay with that.

But for now, it's really not something to worry about and he settles in on the couch as the Samurai trickle in, take up spots by the door. Not all of them, but some, and some hints of movement make him realize that others are hiding in the floor.

Kind of weird, but okay.

He's slept with other people around, at least, often enough to have no trouble with it, so he lets his eyes close and falls rapidly into the darkness behind his eyes--  
 _  
\-- that liege lord who --_

 _\-- apart. Without a doubt--_

 _\--simply obey.  
_  
He frowns, already being dragged under the surface, brows drawing down. Tries to respond, but he's too tired, sluggish, not really able to come out of it, and gives up. He can figure it out tomorrow.

Before he can quite fall in, dreams already starting to shift in surreally, he hears Roxas, sleepy and distant, in his mind: _Sora, where **are** you?_

 _Night_ , he thinks fondly, and lets himself go.

 

 **All the Comforts of Home**

Before he can quite wake he finds himself on stained glass. Roxas stands across from him, glaring; it has particularly strong effect because Roxas is wearing the coat, and Sora shivers a little.

"--Hey, do you always have to wear that here?"

Taken aback, Roxas looks down, then back up and shrugs. "It's who I am," he says. "Even if I don't like it, the clothes that I wear elsewhere don't define me here."

"They're clothes," Sora says, exasperated. "They shouldn't define who you are _anyway_."

"Well, that's -- don't change the subject!"

Roxas points a keyblade at him, and although Sora's pretty sure it's just for dramatic effect, he raises his own anyway. "I'm not changing the subject!"

"Where are you?" Roxas says. "What do they have you doing?"

"It's fine," Sora says. He lets his keyblade lower again, backs off. "Heh, were you worried about me?"

"...You can take care of yourself."

"You're having fun with Axel, right?" Sora says. "Don't interrupt it to worry! That'd be dumb. I'm doing fine -- we're all doing fine here."

"...I'll join you."

"No, don't," Sora protests. "Really, it's cool. I wouldn't want to interrupt your fun time."

Roxas glares. "And why not?"

"Because Axel will be mad at me again," Sora says, promptly. "He'll call me things like 'jerk' and 'cockblocker' and 'ultimate tiny nuisance'!"

Despite himself, Roxas smiles.

"It's not funny!" As Sora wakes further, the platform is slipping away into light. "So don't worry about it. I'll -- I'll call you or something, okay? Let you know how it's goi--"

He snaps awake on the couch. He's warmer than when he went to sleep -- there were no blankets, nothing that homey here -- but as he shifts he finds that he's been draped in Roxas's coat, and a small box containing it has been opened.

He blinks sleep out of his eyes, sits up, yawns, and the coat puddles down to his waist.

And then he lets his lips twist with annoyed amusement and looks about. "Okay," he says. "Which one of you did this?"

The Samurai look over, mild and apparently innocent.

"I'm not wearing it!"

They return to ready position at the door.

"I'm _not_!"

 

 **Intimate Connections**

The next day is only more frustrating because he feels he should have learned something already. Levelled up his understanding or something. The Samurai are sitting patiently and he actually wishes they'd get impatient or something because this is just getting embarrassing.

"Look!" he says. "Can't you just talk normally?"

They seem to glance between each other. One vanishes into the floor.

He huffs -- and gets an idea. "Hang on, hang on," he says, and reaches inside, turns towards where he thinks his heart might be and calls -- _Roxas?_

 _NNGH?!_

"Whoa," Sora says. He focuses again. _Hey, you okay?_

 _God yes I -- what? What do you WANT, Sora?_

Sora makes a face. _You're **weird**. I'm trying to talk to Nobodies._

 _And I care wh--ogod!_

 _Are you **sure** everything's okay?_

 _...Yes. Trying to talk to Nobodies. Right **now**?_

 _Yes! C'mon, help me. **You** can do it, right?_ Sora pouts at the air.

 _Yes, but -- look, just listen, if you just listen right, you can do it, and -- if it's important, you just need to stop ... no, don't stop!_

 _...What are you asking me to do, Roxas?_ Suspicion's starting to dawn.

 _...The darkness. Darkness inside you; that's where you'll h-hear it. Inside you._

Sora goes red abruptly; on those last few words the link had tightened and sensation is filling him, hot and fast and tight and intimate. _Look_ , he thinks quickly. _I'll uhh talk to you later!_ and flings his consciousness outward.

The Samurai are watching him with what seems to be mild interest. He shifts, breath fast, cheeks bright, stomach tight, cock aching.

"Can you--" He cuts himself off and clears his throat when his words came out in a squeak. "-- Can you give me, like, ten minutes?"

 

 **Calm Before the Storm**

They're almost ready to go. Marluxia has detected a strange, unfamiliar darkness in the 'counsel room' -- wherever that is, Sora has no idea, and bets that it has a much longer name normally. The darkness is probably Maleficient, but she isn't, at least, making the first move.

He still isn't quite ready -- completely, anyway. Still can't understand the Samurai, is still along pretty much as their pet Keyblade master. But Marluxia and Larxene seem calm and ready, at least, though Larxene keeps tossing her knives about almost like a nervous habit. Not that she _has_ nervous habits, Sora reminds himself.

They're having some sort of last meeting, a number of Nobodies in attendance, and Sora sighs, turns around, and finds himself face to face with a part of the stonework detaching itself.

He jumps back, Keyblade whisking into life; the Creeper, as he identifies it a moment later, flaps back in alarm, spins into a disk, and vanishes, pulsing, into the floor.

"Oh," Sora says. "...Oh." He rises from his crouch, rubbing the back of his head. "Sorry."

It slides back a little ways more, takes as long a route around him as it can, then drags itself along towards Marluxia and Larxene's feet.

Sora sags a little.

It's kinda unfair, really.

 

 **Darkened Hearts**

"All right," Marluxia says. "Sora. Are you ready?"

Sora nods. "As ready as I'll ever be," he says fervently.

"Larxene?"

Larxene smiles, and pulls her hood up, zipping up the last few inches, tightening the strings slightly. Like that, she vanishes into her hood so that other than the vague hints of a figure under her coat, Sora's not sure he could pick her out of a crowd of unknowns.

He turns again in time to see Marluxia finishing adjusting his own hood.

Despite himself, Sora gets a chill at the sight; he's seen other people in the unknown cloaks before, but he's never seen them put the hood back up once he's known who they are. Seen like this, he can almost believe their weird claims that they don't exist. Even the atmosphere he's used to -- Marluxia's constant trail of flower petals, the scent of ozone and crackle around Larxene -- has vanished. It's like their coats are empty.

He shakes off the thought fast, tensing as Larxene comes forward and closes her hands on his shoulders. "We're going to teleport," she purrs. "This will probably hurt a bit, but you're a big boy, right?"

"Wha--" he begins and then _darkness pressing in, filling his pores and he finds himself struggling against a low growl that begins in his chest and wants to rip through his veins, feels his eyes start to shift, feels darkness begin to bleed from him_ and then they are out and Larxene, floating, is setting him down to stand on a throne.

He takes an uncertain step forward, still in his proper form, and wobbles a bit on the edge. It's a long way down, and brambles and thorns rise from the depths. "Whoa," he says, and looks up.

Larxene and Marluxia are floating ahead of him. Across the hall from them, green flame licking up her cloak, Maleficient stands, her arms outstretched, staff clutched in one green bony hand. Balanced uncertainly on a chair, Pete is looking none too happy to be there.

"Insolent fools," Maleficient says. Her voice fills the hall richly, echoes in a way that almost grates, like the hall doesn't want to echo. "How dare you return to this place when it is mine by right!"

" _Yours_ ," Larxene says.

"Witch," Marluxia says. He raises both arms up in an appeal to the heavens. "This place is not yours; it does not belong to those who have grasped being. It belongs to nothing, it comes from nothing, it thrusts forward into a future that will not happen. Will you lay claim to an empty future and a hopeless present?"

"Your pretty words are the only thing empty in this place," Maleficient retorts. "This is the perfect place for for me, the mistress of all evil!"

Sora knows a fight when it's coming and focuses on Pete. Pete can't fly, so it'll be a question of hopping around from throne to throne.

Pete doesn't seem to notice. "Uuuuuuuuuhhh, but Maleficient," he protests. "This place isn't _worth_ fightin' for. There's too many Heartless, even _you_ haven't been able to control 'em--"

"Quiet, fool!" Maleficient flares.

"Enough darkness and the strongest heart will be lost," Marluxia says. He sounds serene, pleased. "There are enough Heartless here to devour world upon world, leave them cracked ruins steaming darkness. Do you believe even you could hold them for long?"

"Empty shell of a broken man," Maleficient addresses him, with sour sarcasm in her voice. "Do you truly believe I cannot?"

"Your heart is small," Marluxia says. He holds out his hands, cups them as though he were cupping a butterfly. "You have gladly accepted the darkness. A strong heart may last a time. But this many Heartless can carry off the giant hearts that power worlds. And you have invited them in and you live among them. Still, no harm done." He brings his hands up to his hood and Sora really can't tell if he's hiding a smile or pretending to eat what was in his hands; he can't see Marluxia's mouth to get a good guess. "We could use both your Heartless and your Nobody, after all."

"How dare you," Maleficient roars and the room's borders flicker with green flame.

It's time, then. Sora bends his knees, crouches, and leaps for the next throne. Pete sees him and begins to throw bombs. He only hopes that Marluxia and Larxene can handle Maleficient.

He's still hoping it when the Heartless start filling the room.

They are swarming deep, climbing up from below, pulling themselves up Maleficient's thick tangled briars, arm over arm, grasping large thorns as they go. Sora glances down at them, wobbles again on the edge of a throne, swings the Keyblade to hit one of Pete's bombs back at him. It hits and Pete's arms pinwheel; he sways, then falls, having to catch onto the edge of the throne, his feet kicking.

Sora ignores him. "Maleficient," he shouts. "Send the Heartless away!"

"Silence, fool!" she shouts back. She's pretty occupied, he sees; Larxene's floated in the air, her face still hidden, arms outstretched and bolts slamming down from them into Maleficient, while Marluxia circles in almost dreamy loops and whorls with his scythe.

Sora's brows draw down. "If you keep on like this, you'll die too!"

Maleficient spares him a moment to sneer at him with superiority. "You're the one who promised me this castle," she says, mockingly. "Will you go back on it now?"

He spreads his hands, pleadingly. "The people who belong here have come home," he protests. "And don't _you_ want a place where you can -- I dunno, be evil at people?"

Larxene giggles.

Green fire flickers towards Sora and he yelps, dodges, leaps to the throne Pete's hanging from. He looks down. "Pete," he says. "C'mon, you can't let her do this!"

Pete makes a noise like a groan of indigestion. "That's like sayin' I can _let_ her do anythin'," he protests. "Maleficient does what she wants. Me, I want out of here!"

Heartless have climbed high enough now to grasp greedily at Pete's legs. Sora looks around -- Pete's a bad guy and kind of selfish, but he doesn't deserve that. "Umm, hang on," he says. "I'm gonna try something, okay?"

Pete looks down, gulps audibly, and kicks his feet harder. "Woncha hurry?"

Sora nods. "Right," he says, backs up as much as he can, runs forward, plants his feet firmly on Pete's shoulders, ignoring his yelp of pain, and leaps.

Glide gets him far enough from there and he tucks his arms in at the last moment, wraps his arms around Maleficient's middle, and holds on as gravity takes hold again.

"You gotta stop," Sora tells her urgently. "You gotta, Maleficient, we're all gonna go like this." The green flame around her is burning him and he slips, slides further down to the darkness trailing at her feet. "Maleficient!"

"Stop," her voice booms, and for a moment he thinks she's using her will over the Heartless to make them back down, but then he realizes she's addressing Marluxia and Larxene. "It seems I have your precious Keyblade master as a hostage."

Sora stares up at her. "I am not," he protests, cross. "Maleficient!"

Her staff raises. "Will you back down?"

Marluxia swings his scythe. Maleficient's staff crashes down at the same time, hard, on one of Sora's elbows and he yelps.

There's no help for it. He's not gonna be able to hold on after a minute anyway.

He takes a deep breath, smiles, flexes his fingers to call the keyblade. If he can get 'em before they come up, that'll be something. And he's fought more than this at one go before. It'll be fine, he decides.

Sora lets go, and drops into the mass of Heartless clambering up towards them.

*

Everywhere they're clawing at him and all he can do is keep twisting and slashing. He feels like he's falling forever and he has no idea how long it's been but he can't do anything else. If he stops, he's a goner, he knows that already. He wonders -- if he'd produce another Nobody or if Roxas would be hurt by his heart being taken. That'd be bad, he thinks hazily. Or maybe Roxas'd just be on his own but that's no good either.

No good at all.

He twists and hits again and groans at the ache through his body. He thinks the brambles must have vanished or he'd have hit them already, and he hasn't, is still falling. His nerves are screaming at him an alert, alert, that he's gonna fail soon, he can't hold out like this. But he's got no choice; he's out of potions and he Cured already and is out of magic. Only twenty seconds until it comes back, but that feels like one hell of a long twenty seconds.

But he can't afford to stop and rest. He twists and swings again and twists and swings and twists and swings. His vision's getting blurry; his vision's growing dark and he twists and--

They're gone.

He's in freefall for a long moment and then a Dusk leaps, catches him in stretchy, bony arms that feel all wrong, and Sora lets the Keyblade fall from his fingers and vanish into light.

The Dusk passes him over to Marluxia's sturdier arms and backs off abruptly, rubbing at itself and seeming to shiver and wobble in place. Sora peers up at Marluxia, unsteadily.

"You," Marluxia says.

Sora glances around, then closes his eyes quickly when that makes him dizzy. "Wha happn'?" he asked.

"We promised a different castle to her," Marluxia says softly. "She was, after all, not able to control the Heartless here fully, and she's really just looking for a home."

Sora blinks slowly. "C'stle 'Blivion? But Marly, s'your _home_. You'n Larxene... Your _garden_ \--"

"Don't be stupid," Marluxia says sharply. "Gardens can be regrown. Moreover, I doubt she'll find it a comfortable place with the memories she has."

"Marly--"

"Stop talking so much," Marluxia says. He tucks Sora a little more closely against his chest. "You little imbecile."

Sora scowls at him weakly. "'scuse me for bein'--"

"I told you to shut up."

Sora is silent for a few moments. Then he asks, "Where's Larxene?"

"Showing our guests out," Marluxia says, dryly. "She's put an order to the Heartless to keep out for now; we're reinforcing it. It won't last, but..."

"Nn."

"...It was incredible," Marluxia murmurs to him, low. Or maybe not to him at all. "Watching that."

"--Nn?"

"Not you," Marluxia says. "We couldn't see you. But out of all that darkness, hearts rising and rising." He leans a bit and Sora jerks; his hood-darkened cheek is pressed to Sora's forehead. "Like a backwards rain."

Sora makes a little whimper as the aches in his body make themselves apparent. "...tha's real creepy, Marly..."

"Ah," Marluxia says and straightens. "I suppose so."

Sora twists to look over as Larxene stomps over on air, her hood pushed back.

"You, you, you--" Larxene is stammering. She stops, glares at Sora, and says, "You little moron," and raps him upside the head with a fist.

It's the last straw and Sora almost gratefully sinks into unconsciousness.

The last thing he hears is, in Marluxia's voice, an irritated, " _Larxene_."

 

 **No Rest for the-**

"You'd better take care of him," Larxene snaps.

Marluxia gives her a careful, unemotional look. "I will be," he says. "And yourself?"

"I'll clear the Castle of any nasty surprises that witch has left for us," she says, tossing a knife from hand to hand. "The Heartless will be cautious for a little while yet, and we wouldn't want her to, hmm, trick us." Larxene smiles. It shows teeth and a lot of soft pouty lip.

Marluxia nods abruptly and tucks Sora closer to himself. "Do that," he says. He teleports with Sora still in his arms, carries him into the Proof of Existence and then, with the faint shiver of violation of personal boundaries, enters Roxas's room.

Slowly, he heads to the couch, sinks down onto it with Sora still in his arms, Sora's legs draped over one arm, shoulders over another. Sora's comfortably light like this and he doesn't quite feel like letting go just yet.

At least Sora is breathing evenly. He'll need to Cure when he wakes up, Marluxia decides. He cannot do the same for Sora, and lacks potions, but. Sora will be able to take care of himself.

Possibly.

A long few moments later he makes himself relax a little and lowers Sora to the sofa, spreads Sora's legs out carefully, rests Sora's head against one of his own legs. He drops a hand to Sora's face, feels out the curves of cheekbones, the developing line of jaw.

He shakes his head slowly. They could have lost so much so quickly, he thinks. There's only one of you, he thinks.

Before he is quite prepared to be seen a Samurai pulls itself up from the floor. He doesn't tense, but watches it with narrow eyes, unsmiling. It lifts Roxas's coat from where it was draped over a nearby box, and drops it carefully on Sora.

It doesn't quite tuck him in -- what it does has much more an impression of arrangement. It fiddles with a corner, moves this bit here, until Sora is fully covered. And then it lifts the hood to cover his face as well.

Marluxia looks down and feels something unpleasant in his stomach he cannot identify. He pulls the hood back again with two careful fingers. "No," he tells the Samurai. "He is human."

It whispers a thought of _agreement-respect-acknowledgementoferror_ and vanishes into the floor again.

Marluxia looks down at Sora again. And he waits.

 

 **Proper Introductions**

Sora wakes later and feels just a lot like crap, bruised and beaten and groaning with it. He shifts uncertainly, whines in his throat, and then squints bruised eyes awake.

He almost jumps up when he sees Marluxia there, realizes the warm pillow under him was Marluxia's _thigh_. "Oh," he says. "Oh uhh sorry --"

"Lie back down," Marluxia says, mildly irritated. "You shouldn't be throwing yourself around like that."

"I'm okay--"

"Lie back down." Marluxia pushes him down again, rising to get out of the way, and Sora groans as he presses into the sofa.

"Marly," he mumbles. "What's--"

"Here's the situation," Marluxia says. "We need to get Castle affairs in order before we can go on to the work I wished to bring you here to do. That will take some time."

Sora blinks and contemplates a cure. "Okay?"

"You were just cast into the darkness," Marluxia says mildly. "You're welcome to a vacation on Destiny Islands until we need you again -- we took you quite suddenly and I'm sure your friends are terribly worried -- but we will wait some time to be sure your heart isn't at any risk."

Sora says, "Lemme be the judge of that."

"No, I don't think so," Marluxia says. "You can get used to the Castle and its inhabitants in the meantime, and if you truly feel up to it, feel free to take care of whatever roaming Heartless you discover we've missed. The lower half is still off limits, so if you find yourself particularly edgy, there's that."

Sora says, "Hey, you just promised me a vacation, you really gonna--"

Marluxia smiles down at him. The expression is dangerous, smug, secure. "You can't leave without us," he says. "Your gummi ship is nowhere around. Be grateful I am willing to return you for your vacation at all, and accept that it'll be a little while."

Sora scowls. "Fine!" he says, and throws a cushion at him. Marluxia vanishes before it hits. "Jerk! You don't like me anyway!"

Laughter echoes.

Sora sinks down again. He rubs the back of his head. "Guess it's time to start talking to you guys again, huh?" he asks the floor.

He picks up a trace of surprise before the Samurai fade into sight and he curls on his side to watch them and feels, maybe, a little smug.

 

 **Something of a Gamble**

Sora's getting better about it, he thinks. He can see flickering white out of the corners of his eyes and not immediately attempt to attack. It's not making _much_ of an improvement, though. Nobodies still tend to melt into the stonework as he approaches.

He huffs an irritated breath. "C'mon," he protests. "This isn't fair."

The pair of Samurai accompanying him -- keeping an eye on him, if he's being totally honest -- seem to glance over.

"It's not," Sora tells them. "It's not like I'm gonna hurt them!"

They don't move, watching him steadily.

"--Any more."

They seem to confer, or that's the impression Sora gets, anyway, with the noise just on the edge of his hearing. One vanishes in a curl of Nobody-energy and Sora blinks. "Hey," he asks the other. "Where did he go?"

Another impression of sound just beyond his hearing and Sora mutters under his breath, strains to hear.

But it stops soon enough and Sora shakes his head instead. "Man," he says. "I still can't."

The other Samurai appears again, and, a moment later, a Gambler pulls itself into being.

Sora takes a step back, is totally proud of himself for not calling the Keyblade, then peers at it. "Uh," he says. "Hi."

It wobbles at him, tilting with easy playfulness, and begins tossing cards back and forth between its hands. Sora tenses, then peers at it. "What're you doing?"

The Gambler shuffles, holds out a hand of cards, the backs to Sora.

Sora blinks at it, then slowly reaches out, fingers hesitating over the cards. "You want me to draw one?"

It waits with some impatience, body swaying this way and that.

Finally, Sora shrugs and selects a card. He turns it around to see a King in Marluxia's image; not sure what suit, though, because before he can see more than red it explodes into confetti and munny.

"Oh!" Sora says. "Hey, thanks!"

The Gambler circles him once, then offers dice.

"I don't know how to play," Sora says. "Uhh -- I can totally learn, though."

It seems to fold in two and Sora follows, crouching on the balls of his feet, watching the dice bounce and roll.

"Is that good or bad?" he asks, when they come to a stop, and is disappointed a moment later when he realizes he can't understand. "Never mind, show me with some kind of. Flash or whatever."

The Gambler peers at him, then offers the dice.

"Right," Sora says, and shakes them between his hands.

When the Gambler appears to grow bored of the game -- some long time later, and Sora's munny is way depleted -- and vanishes, Sora looks up and rubs his eyes, finding the Samurai still there, kneeling in the air, and watching with patience.

"That was weird," Sora says. "Wonder why he came to play, anyway."

They stare resolutely at the far wall in distant disinterest.

"Man," Sora grumbles. "You're no fun at all."

 

 ** Out of the Black **

**\--perhaps never.**

 **If that is so, it is so.**

 **Undesirable.**

 **One can endure.**

 **Always, yes. Still. He is not, but that he is.**

 **It is yet enough.**

 **That one will not return.**

 **That is true. Though he _may_ yet return, if not for us.**

 **Is that not good? It is who that one is.**

Sora rolls over on the couch and glares. "Hey," he mumbles sleepily. "Keep it down, I'm trying to sleep."

A long silence.

And then:

 **...Liege?**

 

 **Three Incidences The Samurai Never Intended To Be Involved With**

1:

"What I don't get is," Sora says, leaning back on the couch with his feet up on the arm. "What I don't get _is_ , why didn't you just talk normally? Larxene and Marluxia and all them can."

 **We lack throats.**

"Oh," Sora says. And then, " _Oh._ "

 **Indeed so.**

"...That _sucks_! But we're gonna fix that, right?"

 **... As you say, liege.**

 

2:

 **You cannot leave.**

Sora freezes guiltily, inches from the sealed-off area. "Aww, come on," he wheedles. "I could go kill some Heartless! It would be awesome!"

 **We have orders to prevent you.**

"But," Sora protests. "I want to. I mean -- I don't have a gummi ship here or anything, but there's the path to the fake Twilight Town, and from there I can get to the _real_ one, and Axel and Roxas are hanging out there, and Axel could get me home, right?"

They freeze.

"--Did I say something wrong?"

 **Whatever they do is their business. And yet--**

Sora blinks. "What does that have to do with anything?"

 **Please reconsider, liege.**

"But," Sora says. "Kairi and Riku are waiting for me. They're worried. I know they are, I can almost feel it. And... I'm worried about them being worried." He holds out his hands in appeal. "They're my friends! Hasn't that ever happened to you?"

 **No, liege.**

Sora collapses, defeated. "Fine," he says. "But. I'll only not go on one condition."

 **And what is that?**

"Stop calling me liege! It's so creepy. My name's Sora!"

 

3:

Sora smiles at the Samurai. "You didn't let me go, right?"

 **That is true.**

"Even though I really, really wanted to."

They wait.

"So," Sora says, triumphantly. "I should totally get something else I want in return."

 **... And what is that?**

"Here," Sora says. "I'll describe it for you. If you can get it, or anything like it, that would be awesome."

It sounds doable. The Samurai ask around.

*

Marluxia exits Havoc's Divide and nearly loses the nose from his face as Sora goes whizzing by on what -- on what looks like a skateboard.

"HEY MARLY! SEE YA MARLY!"

Marluxia stares after, wide-eyed, his hair just settling from where it was blown back from his face. Taking a few steps forward he can see down to the next room, where Sora is grinding on the edge of the platform, much to the delight of several Dancers.

He turns to look at the Samurai guarding the door.

"I thought I told you to keep an eye on him!" he snaps.

The Samurai seems almost to shrug. Marluxia glances down into the next room, watches Sora Reverse around a Dusk on the skateboard, and then pinches the bridge of his nose.

"I'll be in my room," Marluxia says.

 **Of course, Superior.**

 

 **Skateboard Side-Stories**

 

"I see," Leon says gravely. "And was anything stolen from your shop?"

"That's the thing," Scrooge says. "There was, but..."

"Go on," Leon says. "This is serious business."

 

*

Later, Yuffie tells him, "Lighten up, Leon!"

"Nobodies, Yuffie. It could mean trouble."

"It was _one Nobody_."

"That's one too many. What does it want with our town?"

"Leon, it appeared, stole a skateboard, and vanished. It's _not_ that big a deal."

"......."

"Leon?"

"..........."

"Sometimes," Yuffie tells him, "I think there's something wrong with your brain."

 

*

Kairi comes running back from the beech waving the bottle triumphantly. "It's Sora!"

"What?!" Riku says.

"A Nobody's been sighted at Radiant Garden!"

Riku frowns, taking the bottle. "Are we sure it has anything to do with Sora?"

"It stole a skateboard!"

Riku looks at Kairi seriously. And then he holds up a hand.

She hi5s him, grinning like her face would split.

*

"You have got to try this," Sora enthuses. "This is awesome!"

 **The... 'SB Trial of Ultimate Meaninglessness'?**

" _Awesome_."

*

"Actually," Larxene tells Marluxia, doing a heel flip, "these things _are_ pretty cool."

"It's undignified."

"Lighten uuuuuuup. Try one."

"...No."

 

 

 **Routine Events**

Sora has a routine about this. He gets up at what he thinks would be bright and early in the morning if there _were_ a morning or, in fact, a 'bright'. He gets up and dresses, trying to disturb as little of Roxas's stuff as possible, attempts to talk with the Samurai -- though it gives him a headache if he tries to do it too long, strained and uncomfortable. And then he heads out and grabs the skateboard he'd left by the door.

The run down from Proof of Existence is a fantastic one. It's all downhill from there. He catches corners, grinds along the edges over voids, flips back up. Reverses around a Dusk. The first time a Dancer glided over and tried to join in he'd freaked out a little, but when it -- she? -- swung him around and released so that he flew through the air before landing on the skateboard again, it was pretty neat. That low crouch still makes him tense, but they're careful not to hurt him now, sometimes tossing him between several of them before releasing.

Then down onto Naught's Skyway, which is a fantastic run, spinning off a Creeper's defensive form, jumping the skateboard from die to die as he passes a Gambler, launching himself off a ramp a Sorceror makes him. Caught in the air while a Dragoon loses form to wind serpentine around him, and then lands, spinning towards the next doorway. An obstacle course through winding, floor-diving Assassins, spinning briefly along a wall towards a Sniper.

(They're almost all surprisingly interested in play, which kind of freaked Sora out and kind of saddened him. He talked to a long-suffering Marluxia about it once, and Marluxia told him that the City at least held entertainments for their kind. Dance halls, gambling parlours, bars and restaurants and all sorts of things, hidden away behind doors Sora had never entered.

Larxene had drawled at him that he should have expected an interest in entertainment, given that their ranks include Gamblers and Dancers as a base form of _being_.)

And then he's jumping off the skateboard and clearing whatever room Marluxia has reluctantly allowed him into, while Marluxia stands above, on the platform before the ruins of Kingdom Hearts, and guides hearts up.

He still wants to go home.

But in the meantime, it's something he finds surprisingly easy to get used to.

 

 **A Hero Returning Home**

"I think it's time," Marluxia says.

Sora blinks over at him. "Time?"

"You should be fine," Marluxia says. "To travel that distance."

Sora frowns. "...And this has nothing to do with the fact that we've just finished securing the castle?"

"Perhaps something," Marluxia says, with that smooth edge that Sora's come to associate with Marluxia lying to both of them again. "After all, with the darkness clear here, it is safer overall to travel the dark paths."

Though seriously Sora doesn't _remember_ any Heartless there when Marluxia had dragged him through them last, it makes sense, at any rate. He considers it suspiciously, then brightens. "I'm going home? To my islands?"

Marluxia's lips twitch. "Yes, Sora."

"For a while?"

"We will still need you," Marluxia warns. "But... yes. Reacquaint yourself with your friends."

"Great," Sora enthuses, and holds out his arms.

Marluxia blinks at them.

"You carried me last time, right?"

"Walk it yourself," Marluxia says with dignity, and opens a path.

"Ehh, you're not coming?"

Marluxia says, delicately, "I believe I angered your friends. It should be safe enough to walk, though move quickly; your heart will still be corroded the longer you linger."

"Right, right," Sora says, and walks through the darkness.

When he emerges into Betwixt and Between and starts to walk, white and grey flickers into being around him. He tenses -- can't help it, given last time he was in a place like this and something like that happened -- but it's just the Samurai, lining the path back.

He nods to them. "Hey," he says, waving a hand.

Silent, they face forward.

He walks past, and as he goes, they lift their swords in salute.


End file.
